© Reuters. People react as injured Palestinians are brought to Nasser Hospital, following Israeli strikes on the Ma’an school east of Khan Younis, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Khan Younis, in the south of the Gaza Strip.
By Bassam Masoud and IbraheemAbu Mustafa
GAZA (Reuters) – The Israeli army bombarded Gaza’s main southern city in what it called the heaviest fighting since the start of the ground invasion aimed at eliminating Hamas five weeks ago, while that the United States once again pressed Israel to allow fuel and life-saving aid into the Palestinian enclave. .
Israel said its forces, backed by warplanes, were engaged in heavy fighting in Gaza on Wednesday, a day after the army reached the heart of Khan Younis and surrounded the city.
Hamas’ armed wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, said its fighters were engaged in clashes with the army, which said it had struck hundreds of targets in the enclave, including a militant cell near a school in the North.
This upsurge in fighting comes after the breakdown of the truce between Israel and Hamas last week.
Hamas’ military wing said Tuesday it had killed or wounded eight Israeli soldiers and destroyed 24 military vehicles. An Israeli military website listed two soldier deaths on Tuesday and 83 since the ground operation began.
Gaza health officials said many civilians were killed in an Israeli strike on homes in Deir al-Balah, north of Khan Younis. Dr. Eyad Al-Jabri, director of Shuhada Al-Aqsa Hospital, told Reuters that at least 45 people had been killed. Reuters was unable to reach the area or confirm the death toll.
The Hamas media office said Tuesday that at least 16,248 people, including 7,112 children and 4,885 women, had been killed in Gaza by the Israeli army since the conflict began on October 7. Thousands more are missing and may be buried under the rubble.
These figures were not immediately verified by Gaza’s health ministry.
Israel launched its campaign in response to an attack by Hamas fighters who rampaged through Israeli towns, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages, according to Israeli counts.
Israeli police are investigating alleged sex crimes committed during the killings, and the Justice Ministry said the victims were tortured, abused, raped, burned alive and dismembered.
AMERICAN PRESSURE ON ISRAEL
Since the truce collapsed, Israel has published an online map telling Gazans which parts of the enclave to evacuate to avoid attacks. The eastern district of Khan Younis was marked Monday and many of its hundreds of thousands of residents fled on foot.
Gaza residents say there is no safe place, with remaining towns and shelters already overwhelmed, and Israel continuing to bomb areas where it tells people to go.
At the main Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, the injured arrived by ambulance, car, flatbed truck and donkey cart after what survivors described as a strike on a school used as a shelter for the displaced.
Inside one ward, almost every inch of the blood-splattered floor was occupied by injured people, including young children, as medics rushed from patient to patient while loved ones cried.
Two young girls were being treated, still covered in dust from the collapse of the house that had buried their family.
“My parents are under the rubble,” sobbed a child. “I want my mother, I want my mother, I want my family.”
As the international community continues to worry about the fate of Gaza, the United States, Israel’s closest ally, reiterated Tuesday that Israel must do more to allow the entry of fuel and other aid to Gaza and reduce harm to civilians. Despite the rising death toll, Israel is now showing some receptiveness to appeals.
“The level of aid provided is not enough,” US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a press briefing. “It needs to increase, and we have made this clear to the Israeli government.”
US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that Hamas repeatedly raped women and mutilated their bodies during its attack on southern Israel, citing survivors and witnesses.
“It’s terrible,” he said at a political fundraiser in Boston.
In a statement on the Telegram channel, Hamas denounced Biden’s accusations as false and said it joined Israel’s efforts to cover up war crimes committed with US support.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited the allegations of rape and other abuses during a meeting with the families of the repatriated hostages, who some participants described as angry because of their frustration with the handling of the situation by the government.
“I heard stories that broke my heart… I heard and you also heard about sexual assaults and cases of brutal rape like never before,” Netanyahu told a conference Press.
Israel says a number of women and children remain in Hamas hands. During the pause in fighting, Hamas returned more than 100 hostages while 138 captives remain.
Biden blamed last week’s breakdown of the truce on Iran-backed Hamas, saying the militant group’s “refusal to release the remaining young women is what broke this agreement.”
Israel and Hamas accuse each other of destroying the negotiations.
Hamas official Osama Hamdan said there would be no more hostages released until Israeli aggression ceases.
Separately, the United States imposed visa bans on those involved in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank after calling on Israel to do more to prevent attacks by Jewish settlers against Palestinians. Two Palestinian teenagers were killed by Israeli troops in Tubas in the West Bank, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported on Wednesday.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Tuesday condemned settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
